Dimitri Shostakovich wrote thirty-three film scores during his career, beginning with New Babylon in 1928 and ending with King Lear in 1970. The composer recalled that as a student he eked out a meagre existence by “banging away at pianos” for silent films. This experience gave him a feeling for the cinema and he considered film work a very proper occupation for a Soviet composer. Many of the films he scored carried a strong Socialist message and this is certainly true of The Gadfly — a film concerning an Italian revolutionary who used to carry out lightening raids and then disappear without a trace. The Romance depicts the hero as an idealistic youth and became widely popular not only in the Soviet Union but also in Great Britain through its use on the television series Riley—Ace of Spies. duration 3.06
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